Changes

A final note on the Sarah Huckabee Sanders bit:  discrimination is bad in any form, sadly, giving her a taste of her own medicine will do absolutely nothing to change her attitude.  In her mind she legitimatizes as well as epitomizes true American values.  She is white, she is Evangelical, and she is heterosexual.  Anyone not meeting this criteria is fairly worthless, a human without value.  She will grow old and bitter as the world around her changes.  She has focused too much on being a Believer and too little on being a Christian.
Yesterday was a busy day here.  I baked bread... again, this time using loaf pans.  It's delicious.
And I rearrange the cycling / weight room.  You see, I have 2 bicycles, the old X6 and My Syn (I do like that name), as well as 2 trainers, the Kinetic (nice color but relatively useless) and the Cycleops.  They took up a lot of space.  The X6?  I'm probably never going to ride it again.  So I bought some racking and hung it up down in the basement.  The Kinetic got stored up in the attic since it has electronics and the basement can get damp at times.  All of sudden the room got bigger.  The sport laptop was moved to the other side of the room and is now located below the TV.  My training videos will now be larger.  And there's more room for the weight bench.

I also ordered a climbing rose - something to put along the side of the porch as a replacement for the wisteria which got chopped out.  For years spring brought heavy purple blossoms to the wisteria.  No more.  This is how life goes sometimes.  Next spring I should have roses looking something like this:

Change does happen.  Some embrace the new, encourage growth, others, like Ms. Sanders, angrily fight against it.  Their fear has more to do with losing control than anything else, of not being able to judge.  For them, change is a cancer slowly eating away at their beliefs.  They don't understand how wrong they are. nor do they understand there is no stopping it.

My Nuts

Yesterday was a busy day.  I made my burritos - in fact I made way too much.  Sometime this afternoon I'll throw all of the leftovers into a big pot and make burrito chili.
And I put out my Christmas Nuts.

Nuts are a regular part of my diet, in fact, I eat them daily since each and every nut is filled with protein.  Yummy!
And yesterday was also the day I finally got fed up with my Kinetic Trainer - you know you really hate it when you spend a lot of money on something and it turns out to be a piece of shit.  The reviews, for the most part, were very good and so I ignored the few complaints...  bad decision.  The problems started shortly after I opened the box.  There were calibration issues, getting the sensor module to size my wheel at a speed of 21 mph (never happened), also the sensor module itself needed to be replaced because the Bluetooth wouldn't connect with the app.  Yesterday the app started crashing about 4 seconds after I started it on both my phone and tablet which means there's something wrong with the app (buggy as hell, if you ask me).  I shot off an email to Kinetic... a couple of hours later I received a general notification, not from a Kinetic, but from another customer who was complaining that the app had stopped working for him as well.  This is bad thing.  The app works this AM, however it's too late, I've already ordered a CycleOps Magnus.  I've used CycleOps for years so I'm going back to them. 
And for those who live somewhere other than Pennsylvania, one of three court cases begins today challenging those evil Republicans and their gerrymandering.  They and their minority party did the same thing in Wisconsin and got a big smack back.  Hopefully it's going to happen again in this state.  You would think they would realize the easiest way to stay in power is to get the majority of the voters on their side.  If they want to keep catering to minority hate groups they deserve to be stomped into the ground.
Anyway, what do you think of my nut bowl?  Made from a tree!  Personally, I think it's a little too small... my nuts just seem to overflow, which is not a good thing, and every time I turn around it seems to be empty.  Damn.

Bill Gates Returns (almost)

Bill Gates is returning to Microsoft - albeit in an advisory mode, or... something like that.  When I heard that all I could do was wonder what took him so long.  Face it, 2013 was not a banner year for the corporation, in fact it seemed as though every month or so someone with Executive Status was shooting themselves in the foot.  I'm sure Mr. Gates was not at all pleased.  Take Windows.  That's his baby.  He was responsible for an operating system which was unbelievably popular because it worked well.  Windows 8 was loathed by many, including me.  It had been pre-installed on a newly purchased laptop.  I wrote about it back then.  Why someone would create an OS designed more for touch screens then anything else was something I just could not comprehend.  You can use a tablet to view reports, verify information, and send email... oh, and putz around on, but you can't use it for data entry.  Try writing a report on one and you'll realize how time expensive it is.  Windows 8 was so unpopular they tried to do an update and they cursed us with 8.1, which turns out to be just as crappy.  I'd heard it was turning so many Lenovo tablets into expensive paperweights they stopped installing it. I don't know who the pudding brains were who thought Windows 8 and 8.1 were good ideas, but I do suspect they are now working in the mail room.

Almost back in the saddle again

Then there was the Xbox One, which was going down like the Titanic until Microsoft started caving in.  This was really a WTF moment in history.  They forgot that the Xbox was designed for video games.  What Microsoft did, in fact, was drop a shit bomb on gamers and try to turn the Xbox into a "Media Center."  They did this because they made too many assumptions about the Kinect.  You see, they sold a shit load, and as a result some jelly brain at Microsoft thought just about every family room in America had a Kinect attached to an Xbox.  What this jelly brain didn't realize was that he was, in actuality, having a brain fart.  You see, a lot of those Kinects they sold were in kid's bedrooms.  I'm not a kid and I bought one, not so I could do the Zumba, but rather to yell commands while playing Skyrim and Mass Effect 3.  The issues kept rolling out and Microsoft started backpedaling because they had no other choice and that made them look dumb as bricks.

I think Bill Gates is coming back, even in a limited capacity, because in 2013 Microsoft failed in a big way.  They failed to understand the needs of their customer base, and not just their needs, often their basic requirements.  To be a successful corporation in today's world you need to fulfill your customer's expectations.  You need to keep your base happy, because they will turn on you in the blink of an eye and the whole world will know how much they disapprove.

kinect to Skyrim

Yesterday I went out and added to my electronic toy collection by purchasing a Kinect.  I did this not because I wanted to play one of the available fitness games but rather because I wanted to give voice commands while playing Skyrim.

There are 200 voice commands you can use.  Instead of pressing going to the map using your controller, you simply say "map" and then say where you want to go.  There are follower commands and item commands and, most importantly "shouts" which can be said in either English or dragon.  I don't think you need to be an Einstein to understand this is where gaming is going.  I don't think you need to be an Einstein to understand this is where gaming is going.  Gaming becomes much more interactive.  You're no longer just using your hands and game play becomes less instinctive and much more personal.

Speaking of Mass Effect 3, the first DLC becomes available today.  I'll wait and watch it on Youtube.